Generally, shade umbrellas, also known as sun umbrellas or beach umbrellas, protect the user from direct sunlight and are used at sporting events, at beaches and parks, and outdoor work and “trade show” environments. When people travel to the beach, they often carry an umbrella for shade. Most of umbrellas have fixed umbrella bases are either sharp points that they jam into the sand, or some sort of weighed base that may be difficult to carry.
The prior art also teaches large umbrellas that are used in the open-air and outdoor environments, such as the “Easy-Up” canopies for trade shows, street fairs and the like. Use of large umbrellas in the outdoor environments have inherent problems with stability, because the shaking motion caused by wind often leads to poor stability. To overcome the problem of unstable umbrellas, the weight of the base is increased in order to achieve stability. This creates a problem as the user of the invention has to haul a cement block, rocks, bottles of water, etc. along just to try to stabilize his/her umbrella. In addition, the generic term “Easy-Up” is a complete misnomer, as it generally takes four tall, relatively strong people to put one of these canopies up, and the same number to take it down.
For both the “recreational” umbrella user and the “business” umbrella user, once the umbrella user sets up in any windy, or potentially windy, location, he/she must plan ahead for the possibility of windy conditions. In addition to having to carry some weight for the base, the user must plan on bringing enough people to set up and take down the umbrella once its usage of over for the day.